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D. D. KOSAMBI
mothers, as representatives of local tribes or gentes, are later replaced by eponymous Brāhmin ancestors, the rsis. Indus valley scals show male animals (single and multiple) which may be interpreted as totemic. The polycephalic god is also prcsent and the civilization has therefore started before and gone beyond the stage of pure worship of his mothers, the rivers or other goddesses. It will be objected that so highly developed a civilization could not have retained matriarchal tradition to such an extent as our analysis requires, but actually there is nothing against it. The main conditions are a relatively undisturbed and rapid advance from the primitive to the urban stage, made possible by the river and its isolat-. ing desert; further, the comparative unimportance of fighting and the warrior in the development of the civilization. Archacology, though incomplete, supports this, whatever the means (naked force, or religion) adopted by that extinct society to preserve internal class divisions; the transformation of the many-headed god into Brhaspati and Brahma suggest religion rather than violence. Even in the epic period, rivers continue to bear heroic sons; the great figure of the Mahabharata war, Bhisma, is born of the Ganges and a human father, Samtanu.
Turn now to Trigiras Tvastra. This personage is supposedly the son of the ancient creator-god Tvastr; a priest-though the father is nowhere called that whence it is a sin to kill him; and in some way an immortal god-priest or else the hymn describing his own killing(x.8) could not have been ascribed to him against all reason by the Anukramani. The father' Tvastr is later enrolled among the Adityas as well as among the Rudras; he share; the adjective visvarupa with his son, but has not three heads. Nothing is said about the mother who bore so remarkable a son, one who is associated with rivers in the form of 'snakes' springing out of his shoulders, as we have seen in Iranian legend. One would guess that he is the son of three mothers, whether also of Tvaste or not. It cannot be a more accident that we find another (nameless) god with three mothers, of whose father there is no mention at all, and who is carly identified with Rudra. This is Tryambaka 'with three mothers', worshipped according to vii.59.12: tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pustivardhanam. The Taitt. Sam. i. 86 calls Tryambaka Rudra and tells us that his animal is the mole. Later we have Tryambaka translated as 'three-cyed', for which there is no philological support but which does serve to climinate the three mothers; it also explains the three eyes of Rudra-Siva. We have another reference in ii.56.5: ula trimālā vidatheṣu samrāļ, to an unnamed god (probably Agni) who has three mothers and is supreme in the divine assembly; the hymn, it will be recalled, deals with several triple deities. This trimätä is glossed by Sayana as trayāṇām lokānām nirmalā, creator of the three worlds; which, though silly as an explanation, gets rid of the awkward and incomprehensible three mothers while showing that the reference was supposed to be to some high god. The conclusion is again that one branch of culture contributing to the
